News Bytes:
- SciFi Channel’s ratings hit their highest marks since 2002’s “TAKEN”
- Toon Disney re-ups “Yin Yang Yo!” for another season
- “The Equalizer” is next up for the big screen treatment
Movie Talk:
A smackdown appears to be in the making over the name “Avatar” for upcoming big screen projects. James Cameron’s Avatar has been in pre-production with R&D into animation techniques for nearly two years, for an original script he’d written 11 years ago. Also on the horizon is M. Night Shyamalan’s Avatar, which is a live action adaptation of Nickelodeon’s animated hit series, “Avatar: The Last Airbender”.
Paramount is backing Shyamalan’s film, and has already registered the name with the MPAA. 20th Century Fox is backing Cameron’s project, and are now crying “foul”, saying that they claim ownership of the name and that no other film project will come out using that name, if they have anything to say about it.
Paul Puri’s Game Review
TV Talk:
- ABC approves pilot for “Pushing Daisies”, new from the writer of “Heroes” and “Dead Like Me”
- USA Network picks up “Avery House”, a scripted project from reality mogul Mark Burnett
- Sam Raimi is developing Dean Koontz’s “The Taking” as a TV miniseries
- Director Shawn Levy doing a TV movie adaptation of Alex Williams’ “The Talent Thief”
- ABC commits to a Fall 2007 TV series continuing from Mr & Mrs Smith
- Cable net Starz has first TV run rights to The Illusionist and 2001’s The Devil and Daniel Webster
- Leonard Nimoy hosts a History Channel special called”Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier”
- Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) is bringing Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series to HBO as a new TV series
- The Weinsteins are seriously considering bringing the Sin City franchise to the small screen
- SciFi Channel has committed to a full 22-episode season of a new “Flash Gordon” series, coming sometime in 2008
Interview: Michael and Summer talk with Peter S. Beagle and Conlan Press president Connor Cochran about the upcoming 25th Anniversary release of The Last Unicorn. We’re finally getting a remastered edition full of extras, and Lionsgate Films has struck an amazing deal to ensure that Peter finally starts to get the film royalties he’s been denied these past 25 years, in addition to introducing this wonderful film to new generations who never had the chance to see it, or never knew it ever existed as an animated film.
If you want to show your support to Peter, and you plan on buying your copy online, buy it direct from Conlan Press. As a special treat, you can also purchase a signed copy direct from them, and it’ll be autographed by Peter on the DVD, the DVD cover and the slipcase. All DVDs are Region 1.
Future Talk: What’s Coming Up?
Anne Hathaway’s next project is Passengers, where she plays a grief counselor starting therapy sessions with six survivors of a horrendous plane crash. Over a short time, she begins to develop a very special connection with them when they start mysteriously disappearing, one by one. She becomes determined to find them and as more evidence surfaces during her frantic search she soon unravels a dire conspiracy at work.
Passengers begins filming this spring for a 2008 theatrical release.
Listener comments: If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know.
Go Social with Slice of SciFi
iTunes: Leave a Review! http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/slice-of-scifi/id73331296
Keep Slice of SciFi going and growing. Please donate and help us continue bringing you the best scifi and genre related news and entertainment available. You can be a monthly contributor, or a one-time donation supporter — either way, we thank you.
During your interview with Mr. Beagle, I kept thinking that this sounded familiar for some reason. Then, at the end of the interview, it hit me: about a year ago, I found a web site discussing the legal “screwing” of Mr. Beagle over royalties. I want to thank you for the links to Conlan Press: I just ordered my autographed copy.
I’m sure they will appreciate the support. It is sad when an artist get screwed by the man. 😉
At least Lions Gate admitted said “screwing” and is making an attempt to correct the issue (even if it is half*$$)
Easy, RapidEye… Lionsgate isn’t responsible for the damage from the original release and VHS sales of the movie over the past 25 years. That’s all on Granada Media (some story details here).
Great show as always guys. For some reason the Last Unicorn seems really familiar. I wonder if it was ever on TV?
Did you guys have an Evo-ectamy? 🙂
james cameron is forever going to do things and in development, he’s hopeless, he had a lucky hit with Titanic which had nothing to with a disaster that happened at the turn of the century and now everyones favourite statistic is that Titanic was bigger than Star wars. you reckon, you illiterates, lets see world population in 1977 compared to world population when titanic came out? and what about number of cinemas in 1977 compared to now. id like to see a smackdown between cameron and lucas. cameron can even bring his submarine so lucas can stick it up his …………………..
…sorry… meant to say:
“…and has already registered the name with the MPAA…”
And this has some legal bearing…how?
Just wanted to say that if this 15-minute interview wasn’t enough Peter S. Beagle and Connor Cochran for you, I did a 3 hour, 46 minute live audio interview with them (and was joined for part of it by Diane Duane).
http://terrania.us/biblio/
Why can’t two movies have the same name, etc? They are two different subjects. The term Avatar is used in different cultures. I see no problem with this, except greed and ownership getting in the away. I’m waiting on the Airbender movie though, hope M. Night has a better time with it than recent movies.
You can also find the theme song to airbender here:
http://avatar-the-last-airbender.juniortoons.com/